The first few weeks in her new home were not so unpleasant as Marie
had anticipated. Frau Schultz and her good husband took the girl
under their wing, and in their simple kindly way, tried to help her
fit herself to her new environment.
After all, it is only the transition period that is difficult for any
of us to live through. We adjust ourselves rapidly to the life that
lies on either side of it, but in that short span between what was
and what is to be, lies our keenest sorrow and suffering.
After the first hard wrench that carried her out of the little house
in the _Blumen Strasse_ into these very different surroundings, Marie
began to enjoy the companionship of the old couple.
Herr Schultz, Shatzi, as his wife called him, played the piano in a
café in an out-of-the-way corner of the city. He was a heavy, rather
stupid old man, who had lived his life pounding out indifferent music
on café pianos. His round, prominent eyes looked out into the world
with a mild wonder. His thick gray hair was rough and unkempt, and
his shabby clothes kept his neat wife busy brushing away the spots
which, in spite of her vigilance, would persist in garnishing them.
His heavy mouth always wore a half-childish smile, and his manner was
one of apology for his very existence, but his little wife, with her
wrinkled face, her sharp old eyes, lived only for him. At first
Marie wondered, but she came to understand that no man can be so
utterly devoid of attraction, but that some woman will love him.
These simple people took the girl to their hearts. They were staunch
socialists who believed firmly in the tenets of their order, still
they realized that the accident of birth which had placed them in the
social status in which they lived, made them not inferior, but
different from those who occupied a higher stratum of society. They
had not failed to observe the difference between Marie and
themselves, yet it was not in the least an obstacle to the mutual
respect and love which increased as the days passed.
Their own daughter, whose photograph was omni-present, they had lost
years before. Frau Schultz, whose fond, though mistaken imagination
had seen a resemblance in Marie's blond prettiness to the plain
Frieda, pointed it out to her husband, who, always ready to acquiesce
with her opinions, eagerly agreed.
The tiny flat, with its old-fashioned furniture, with Hanzi, the
canary, singing in his cage, and the shining leaves of the little
rubber tree in the corner, came to mean home to Marie.
The furnishings of her father's house realized less than Herr Gutmann
had anticipated. While the money lasted, Marie busied herself
helping Frau Schultz about her duties and sewing buttons on the
shirts which the thrifty little woman made to eke out the scanty
exchequer.
In her inexperience, she had believed that the world was made up of
people like her father and the nuns at the convent. People who were
kind and thoughtful, considerate of the feelings of others, each man
ready and willing to help his weaker brother. The splendor and
riches that sparkled along the boulevards, the fertile fields, with
their bounteous harvests that spread about the convent, this was the
world to her. She had no realization that there might be people who
could have no share in all this. She had supposed that she would
always be surrounded by the comforts of a home such as the little
house in the _Blumen Strasse_. The sudden awakening out of this
pleasing supposition, had left her dazed, breathless, as one would
feel when a supposedly secure shelter had been suddenly shattered by
wanton hands.
Although Marie's education at the convent had given her no definite
training for earning her living, still she was not without an
inherent quality of courage, that dogged something that had made her
father go on with his life when his heart was in the grave. With her
natural timidity, she shrank from contact with the world of which she
knew so little, but the realization that her money was fast dwindling
away, warned her that a means of augmenting her slender resources,
must be found. Mentally shutting her eyes, and gulping as a child
does before taking a dose of bitter medicine, she faced the situation.
Herr Gutmann managed to get two pupils for her. Twice a week, Marie
went to teach them the scales.
One was the small daughter of a rich brewer. She was a delicate,
weak-eyed child, without any initiative or interest in anything. She
always seemed to Marie like a pale spot in the gloom of the huge
drawing-room. Her thin legs, dangling down from the music bench
seemed ever to be seeking a resting-place, and her transparent
fingers played the scales in a tinkling, apologetic way, making the
same mistakes in the same places, lesson after lesson. When Marie's
patience gave out, which was seldom, for she loved children and even
had a spark of affection for this unresponsive little creature, the
pale eyes would blink at her uncomprehendingly, and the thin fingers
would tinkle out the same mistakes in the same way.
Her other pupil was a boy of eleven, a square, flat-faced youngster
who hated the lessons and spent his time between them in devising
methods of annoyance for his patient teacher. He was never happier
than when, with both feet on the pedals he would come crashing down
on the keys, till poor Marie held her ears in terror, for the boy's
mother was nervous and abhorred noise of any kind, and each lesson
ended in the servant bringing word that the _Gnädige Frau_ could not
be disturbed any longer.
But even for these two pupils, Marie was grateful. The money she
earned, she put away to be used when her own supply should have
vanished.
The sum in the savings-box was still pitifully small, when one day
the servant, coming in with the usual message about the _Gnädige
Frau's_ nervousness, added that the noise disturbed her, so that in
the future, she would be obliged to have the lessons discontinued.
With an extra crash on the long-suffering piano keys, the
square-faced youngster announced that he was glad, that he hated
music, he hated teachers, hated everything in general and Marie in
particular, and bounced out of the room.
The girl stood for a moment staring blankly at the servant who
grinned as she held the door open for her. She could hear the
thumping footsteps of her pupil as he bounded up the stair, and his
voice came down to her shouting his joy at the dismissal of the hated
teacher.
Her heart sank as she went down the steps into the street. There was
still the pale-eyed child, however, and the money left by her father
was not yet quite exhausted, why let this curt dismissal prey on her
so? She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. Things hadn't
reached their worst yet.
It was raining a sad sort of drizzle that made it difficult to be
cheerful, and it was with a vague foreboding that she turned into the
street where the other pupil lived, and rang the bell of the big
house.
The man servant who let her in, took her umbrella and threw open the
door of the gloomy room. She missed the apologetic tinkle of the
scales which usually came from somewhere out of the distance. Her
eyes growing accustomed to the semi-darkness, she saw the pale-eyed
child sitting at the piano, her dangling feet groping for a
resting-place, her thin hands idle on the keys. When the man had
closed the door, the child slid from the piano bench.
"Fräulein," she said, "I don't have to take any lesson to-day, the
doctor says it is bad for my eyes."
Marie paused in her task of unrolling her music.
"When shall I come then?" she asked.
"Oh," and there was a quick note of pleasure in the colorless little
voice which hurt the girl to hear, "I don't have to take any more
lessons at all. Here's a note from mamma," and she handed her a
small white envelope.
Marie took it with trembling fingers. She opened the note and found
it to be a formal one of dismissal on account of the child's health.
It enclosed a small sum still due.
Marie walked home through the rain. Surely this great world that she
had seen stretch away in such fertile fields from the convent
windows, had enough to spare for one girl who wanted so little. The
uneven distribution of material things had never touched her before.
Now she was beginning to realize that there were those who had more
than they could use, and yet held tightly to it all. How few there
were like the father whom she had lost, whose religion it had been to
share with his fellow men.
She climbed the long flights to the little Schultz flat,
disheartened. Her landlady's sharp eyes took in the situation at a
glance.
"Both of them stopping, Fräulein?" she asked, "never mind, drink your
coffee and to-morrow you can find others." Her optimism stilled
Marie's fears and as she sipped the steaming beverage and munched the
cake Frau Schultz was noted for, she planned how she would find other
pupils.
And now began long days of seeking for something into which her poor
little convent-learned accomplishments would fit.
But nobody seemed to want to study music. Her French was nearly
perfect, the good nuns at the Sacred Heart had seen to that. She
tried to find some one who wished to learn, but though it happened
that just then the study of the French language was very popular in
Vienna, everyone wanted a Mademoiselle from Paris.
She knew a little singing, a little drawing; a little, but not enough
of anything. Her drawing, she tried to utilize, but no one wanted to
learn the gentle art of sketching in water colors or making dainty
pen drawings. The time had gone by for that, there were too many art
schools where one could learn to paint boldly from the nude, in
garish colors, futurist canvasses.
How many others were trying as she was trying. How much more
competition than things for which to compete. This world, that seen
from the convent windows, had seemed all peaceful fields, green and
tranquil, that had given her kindness and comfort in her father's
house, what a different aspect it wore, now that she had stepped down
from her sheltered nook.
To Marie, facing it like a timid hare brought to bay, it seemed like
a pack of snarling hounds, quarreling over bones thrown from some
more fortunate table, wrangling and fighting, climbing on the
shoulders of each other, ruthlessly trampling down the weaker. She
was frightened, yet filled with a bitter wonder that here, suffering
was not only a possibility, but a certainty.
The pillow on her little yellow bed was soaked with many tears,
frightened, disappointed tears, and still, through it all the
thoughtfulness and generosity of these two old people with whom she
made her home, kept alive in her heart faith in human nature. They
had so little and yet that little was divided gladly with one less
fortunate than they.
The year was nearly gone now and so was the money. Soon she would
have to supply herself from the small box of savings, and after that,
she dared not think. She could not be a burden to these kindly
people, knowing, as she did, that there was scarcely enough for
themselves, and that, only, with the help of what she was paying for
her tiny room.
One evening, Herr Schultz came home with the announcement that there
was a chance for her if she cared to take it, singing in the little
café where he played.
"The salary is very small, Fräulein," he said, "but I shall be there
to bring you home each night, and your voice is not a bad one."
Marie loathed the very thought of doing such a thing, but she dared
not refuse with a knowledge of her ever-dwindling funds, and the
danger of at last living on the Schultz's bounty, so it was decided
that she was to go with the old man the next day and apply for the
position.
"Have you a pretty dress, Marie?" asked Herr Schultz. "You will have
to wear something with no neck or sleeves."
Marie made a mental inventory of her wardrobe. There was a simple
frock that could be arranged, so she nodded. The old man rubbed his
hands.
"Now," he said, "come and sing some of the Schubert Lieder, or
perhaps a little Grieg."
Her voice was a small high soprano, with a very sweet note in it, and
her natural appreciation for all that was beautiful and tender, gave
her singing an appealing quality that more than compensated for its
lack of volume.
The old man was delighted.
"Good!" he said. "We go to-morrow," and Frau Schultz nodded
approval, as she threaded a needle, her small head on one side, the
bird-like eyes squinting at her work.
The café or tingle-tangle where old Schultz played, was one of the
sort the outside world referred to as Bohemian, tucked away in an
obscure corner of the city. The proprietor was an oily-faced man
whose good humor depended entirely upon the amount of patronage his
house received.
He nodded to old Schultz and looked Marie over appraisingly. He
noted with approval her blue eyes and delicate features. The
mourning frock, for she still wore black, set off the gold of her
hair.
"Sing for me," he said, and to Schultz's accompaniment and with her
heart pounding, Marie sang.
"H'm," grunted the proprietor, "the voice will do, but Gott, those
songs, do you think this is a church? Find something lively,
something gay, a bit--you know," and the girl felt her face flush at
his tone.
She was about to say she couldn't, but she thought of the little that
stood between her and starvation, and that not only she, but the good
people with whom she lived, needed this position, so swallowing hard,
she said she would try.
"And your dress," the proprietor called after them as she and the old
man were leaving, "mind you put some dash in it!"
"It will be all right," soothed Schultz, when they were walking down
the street together, "don't mind, _kleinchen_, I'll be there to take
care of you. We'll go now and pick out some songs, and to-night the
good _Frau_ will help you fix up the dress."
They went into a music shop, in the window of which hung a gaudy
display of popular music. With the help of an anæmic youth who stood
behind the counter and ogled Marie, they selected four or five, and
having paid for them out of her slender purse, they started home.
All that afternoon they went over the songs, the old man explaining
to her how she must sing them, with more dash, more life, and the
girl going over them patiently.
"Can't I put in one of the Schubert songs?" she begged. "Just so I
won't feel so terribly away from myself?" and after a good deal of
debate, they settled on "Impatience," trusting that its swift-rung
cadence might make up for its very evident incongruity to the
surroundings.
All evening, Frau Schultz and Marie pulled and snipped and sewed at
the simple frock, trying to arrange it so as to please her new
employer, and when at last the girl stood before the little mirror
and looked at her reflection, she was startled at the change she saw.
Her slender arms were white, even against the white of the gown, and
her almost childish throat and young bosom with its delicate curves
looked very lovely where the lace fell away. She had piled her hair
high on her head, and the good Frau, after searching among her
belongings, had unearthed an old-fashioned high comb which she had
insisted upon her wearing.
"You look very sweet," she said, "to-morrow you'll win every one's
heart."
"I don't want to do that," sighed Marie. "It's a horrid place,
really Frau Schultz, but I must do my best. That means a lot to all
of us, doesn't it?"
The good little woman kissed her.
"There, there," she said, "if things don't go right, you must not
worry. Shatzi and I are always here. Now go to bed," and with a
kind little pat, she took the lamp and left her, closing the door
after her.
For a long time Marie sat and looked at the girl in the mirror. What
would be the outcome of this venture, she wondered. What would her
father have said, if he could have known. If she could have looked
ahead, how she would have hated the little white dress that she laid
aside so carefully, how she would have hated the old-fashioned comb,
which she drew out to permit her wonderful hair to come tumbling
about her shoulders.
What an all wise Providence it is that has made us blind to what lies
before us! How few would have the courage to go on if they could
look even one day ahead!
As she turned down her lamp and slipped into bed, her only thought
was, could she manage to keep this place that had come to her when
she so much needed it.